Bogleheads.org

I am struggling with this. Could someone give the significance of 10%? It was specified in the Old Testament law. Some people and churches believe it still applies. Others don't. Can't say any more without turning this into a religious discussion. Ah. Gotcha. I was not aware of that. :oops:

I am struggling with this. Could someone give the significance of 10%?

Congratulations. Assuming you have an emergency fund and equity in a home, you probably reached this goal a lot sooner than now.

Cosmo

No issues down in Texas.

Cosmo

I access both from the same accounts page. It's been like that for over 8 years.

Cosmo

Locked

This article about the current DDoS attacks from Cyberbunker on Spamhaus et al. might interest folks of this thread: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/technology/internet/online-dispute-becomes-internet-snarling-attack.html I guess if one lives in a backwater like Texas one will not have as many pr...

Will you own it after your employer buys it? I ask this because if your employer owns it all of the information on the phone is his. I will own it. The reason my employer is so generous is that about 10 years ago, my firm got us all Blackberries for email access. I am the last person in my firm sti...

Petrocelli wrote:My employer is going to buy me a smartphone for up to $300. I have never owned one. What one should I buy?

I am thinking about the Motorola Razr HD or the Samsung Galaxy S III. Any thoughts?

Go with what works and what works best. Hands down, the iPhone 5.

Cosmo

+1...

Sidney wrote:zero, I e-file and keep a PDF file of the return for my records.

The poll is not how many physical pages long your return is. I am assuming your PDF document is X # of pages long -unless you don't do your taxes at all.

Sounds unlikely that the OP gets any tax benefit from the mortgage, with no state income tax and a low rate + balance (unless he donates substantially to charity or has some other large deduction). Still, the rate is low even with no tax benefit. No, it's not as low as a risk-free rate, but I'm not...

Thank you all for your thoughtful suggestions. Xanadu: I live in Texas so no state income taxes. Snowman: Thank you for the book recommendation. I will check it on on Amazon.com. Letsgobobby: I am kind of leaning in the direction of applying extra payments to the kid's 529 plans and maybe part of it...

Hi everyone, Wanted to get your thoughts on what to do with an extra $500 per month. I am trying to decide whether to pay off our mortgage or fund my boy's 529 plans. I presently max out my work 401(k) and both of our Roth IRAs. I am in the 25% tax bracket with a healthy emergency savings account. I...

I am surprised and humbled at the same time. Ours, including property tax and insurance is around 20%, which is on the HIGH end here. Up to this point, I felt that we lived well below our means but now I am not so sure. I am really surprised at that large number of people here at only 5-10%.

Cosmo

...The several mentions of Treasury Direct's medallion requirement make me concerned about suggesting I Bonds. At the very least, if this is correct, it needs to be mentioned in the I Bond section of the Wiki. Medallion signatures are required here: How Do I Transfer Securities from Legacy Treasury...

A growing number of banks, including Wells Fargo, no longer provide this service. TD requires this whenever you change your primary account that is linked to your TD account. I did not have this medallion signature guarantee but apparently, TD was not too concerned about this and perhaps recognized ...

Check out this post on small houses from a while back.

Cosmo

When I make a mistake, I am the first to admit it. In this case, I believe the officer made a mistake so I need your help. I was driving home in the evening. I was on the right lane and I was about to exit the freeway. I was then pulled over. The officer claimed I was going 80 miles per hour while ...

Anyone else find it interesting that gold prices are very strong yet inflation expectations remain very low?

Cosmo

I have no number here. Retiring is all about when:

1) You have enough.
2) You had enough.

Not close to #1 yet but the good news is I am also not very close to #2 either.

Cosmo

I've got then same JC Penny suit. This is just fine unless you are hobnobbing it. A tailored suit is also OK. 1 suit every 15 years is not going to bust you. To the OP: Congrats on going 15 years at the same size. I'm lucky if I don't have to jump up a size more than once a decade. Thank you, MathW...

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. Very helpful. OK, the takeaways so far: One suit should probably be fine. Solids only (more things go with it), charcoal gray is best and probably works in the event of a funeral or something. No pleats, no cuffs. $300 or so the "sweet spot" price poin...

It has been about 15 years since I purchased a suit. The last one I got was a navy blue wool suit (with dated pleated pants) and the pants are starting to come apart. Time to get a new one. Except I don't know where to start so I am posting here to get your thoughts, ideas and opinions. Should I try...

gnosis wrote:Black Swan insurance is what you're looking for. BTW the scientists calculated that the chances of a meteor and an asteroid both coming so close to Earth on the same day... yesterday... was 1 in 100 million.

It's is nonsense. Meteors bombard the earth on a daily basis.

PaleHorse wrote:On a somewhat related level, why is the federal government always on the hook for the effects of natural disasters and not private insurance? i.e Katrina, Sandy...

Can this be answered w/o going into politics?

To answer your second question, of course, it cannot...

You can preach all you want here and tell people to use strong passwords but unfortunately, the hijackings are occurring with folks with the weak passwords who are infrequent posters -and are not reading our advice/pleas.

Cosmo

Here you go.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=96039

Alternatively, there is a free iPad/iPhone app called #MacHash, which I love. It will pretty much stream anything Apple related to you -usually several newsworthy articles every day.

Regards,

Cosmo

Don't get too excited about such short-term accomplishments as they can go away just as quickly. Oh, come on! It's a great accomplishment, regardless of whether tomorrow's market takes him slighly below his current level. Reaching 7 figures is a huge milestone for anyone who works for a living. Con...

I've have written before that we found a distinct advantage to having two 520 plans for each of our kids. One 529 was all stocks, the other all fixed income. The plans were in different states and had different owners. This setup allowed us to tax-loss harvest the stock-containing 529 plans without...

The US Government wants to know it is paying the correct person. It is not protecting you, it is protecting itself against losses and lawsuits. And that's what makes it so frustrating. And it your "change of accounts" form gets "lost" in the mail, they aren't liable. So I either...

Flash crash. Now a flash sale. I'll take it.

Cosmo

My wife went to buy $10,000 worth of I-bonds from the Treasury Direct Site. When it showed the bank account information that would be used in the transaction, she realized that it was a checking account that was closed several months earlier. No problem, she thought, there is a nice convenient hyper...

I'm in the market for a new midsize SUV, retiring a 2002 Honda CRV. I've loved the CRV but am looking to step up a little with this purchase. Some of the things I'm looking for are high build quality and reliability (the CRV sets a high bar), good ride over rough pavement, decent gas mileage. Don't...

Previous posts have discussed Vanguard's bad password policies, which appear to indicate that the site may have poor security, possibly even including storing passwords as plaintext (a BIG security NO-NO). Today I discovered that Vanguard is on the https://defuse.ca/password-policy-hall-of-shame.ht...

Unfortunately, this thread is at great risk of getting locked. Typically, they never end well.

Just FYI, you are responding to a thread over a year old.

One great way to hedge against inflation is to leverage yourself in debt and pay the debt back in tomorrow's inflated dollars. The most common and less risky way would be taking out a 30 year mortgage on your existing home with little or no money down. However, as you know, having any outstanding mo...

Of course, I don't know about the future inflation. I've seen my saving rate dropping significantly after purchasing the house. The insurance, repair, maintenance, and utility all add up. So I may not be able to save a lot down the road. Also I don't intend to pay it off earlier than 10 yrs. This i...

I was surprised to see no threads about the elections. I know this is not a political board so please refrain from political comments. There are plenty of other places on the web for that.... but, how is the outcome of the election last night going to alter the markets? Are people making any change...

a job you love and are passionate about? Anybody I know that truly loves their work doesnt look forward to retiring! I see so much encouragement here for the means to go about aquiring wealth to retire early, yet never encouragement for finding the right job. If you love your work chances are you'l...

Many thanks to Larry and Alex who made this happen. I would say rain nor sleet could take the down the Bogleheads.org web site but that would be an understatement! My thoughts and prayers are with those during these difficult times, especially for those who have lost loved ones...

Cosmo

[Political post removed by admin LadyGeek]

And there you have it. And this thread will be locked in 3 2 1......

samrnull wrote:I like Frank's Hot sauce (the original version) [in addition to Sriracha, of course.]

Frank's...... I put that $&@t on everything!

I don't understand the reasoning behind getting a HEL. So you are taking out a loan to pay off a loan? How does that help? The OP is not interested in refinancing. That is essentially what you are doing here with an HEL. I think the simplest solution is trying to add additional principal payments (t...

I haven't seen this mentioned except in passing, so forgive me if it has been posted already, but I got a notice in my AMEX bill this week that after my credit card expiration date (Jan 15), the 6% cashback feature will apply only to the first $6000 of supermarket purchases in any year. I guess wit...

https://mortgage.wellsfargo.com/easyapp/index.jsp See if you can do the 3 step easy refi through wellsfargo. I did it a year ago and it went well. The best part, it is free. I would also get a couple of GFEs from a couple others. I have always found that Wells Fargo has been on the little high side...

+1 for Mint.com. It works well for me. Every once in a while there is a hiccup but having everything in one place is gold and well worth the price.

Cosmo's hot tip: Avoid all hot tips.